Random Thoughts Post Game Part Deux

We had a pretty good showing fanbase wise. It seemed ORU “fans” outnumbered us 4:1 but most of those were the local yokel Nebraska/Creighton/Iowa crowd that just adopts the underdog du jour as their own. Many we talked to couldn’t tell you what state ORU was in, couldn’t name a player, and certainly didn’t know the religious background of the school… but they sure enjoyed wearing juvenile “Oral” pun shirts and rooting against the Gators.

The handful of real ORU fans we met were good people.

 

Sully got lucky. No much he could do but sit back and trust his guys. Not trying to stir up trouble, but you could see in Sully's face the torment he faced and looked mental handcuffed. At one point he looked like he was weighing the cost to use Cags if needed or take the loss and work our way back thru the losers side. In the end it looked all he could do is take a deep breath and let baseball happen. So be it, we got a ground ball to short and a fly ball to left center to end it. Winning ugly is never fun but resting until Wednesday is always better.

 

I had the pleasure of attending the 2006 Hoops Final Four when George Mason was the Cinderella. They had their own fans to support them, plus good will and cheers from the unattached fans in the arena. But the loudest and most consistent cheers were from the UCLA and LSU fans who wanted nothing to do with the '04s plus Humphrey.

 

Don't know enough about the rules to know for sure if the umps allowed Fisher too much warm up time. The rule I looked up said if a pitcher is ejected, the relief pitcher is allowed must warm up on the field, but will be given ample time to warm up. Since Neeley was forced to leave by the officials this may have been their reasoning.

Even more importantly, since we had nobody warming up, it is also a player safety issue. I'm sure the NCAA would never want to be accused of a pitcher being forced in without being allowed to properly warm up and blowing out his arm against the first batter.

 

WE won! But had only 5 hits (the first hit was an error), stuck out at least 12 times, had terrible plays in the outfield. Evans is not an outfielder but his bat as come alive, Josh had a bad day in the field, Neely and Slater were off, but we won! I was there and it seems there wherefore LSU fans than anybody and they were rooting for ORU.

 

My brother-in-law, who coaches, said the warming up should take place in the bullpen, and the pitchers are only given a certain number of throws at the mound for warm-up.

However, you might be right that the “ejection” brought in other rules or allowances.

 

Wilkerson often came in from. the outfield and never got extra pitches.

Don't know why Cade gor a few extra tosses.

 

Is there a difference between a coach initiating a change of pitcher versus the pitcher being sent off by the umpire, albeit in response to a coach’s action?

 

Pretty sure that the umpires used the same guideline as for when an unplanned pitcher is brought into the game due an injury to the current pitcher—the bullpen was empty of activity at the time.

That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

 

I suspect that the umps didn't know what to do so they gave him a few extra throws but not as many as Cade would have liked.

 

Playing in the outfield meant he was throwing every inning while the current pitcher was getting his pre-inning throws, so his arm was limbered up.
I got the impression that Fisher was just in the dugout watching the game.
Could be wrong, but the only pitchers I seem to recall getting any bullpen throws at all were Abner, Slater and Neeley.

 

My thoughts on the game. We ended up getting the win even though we didn't play very well, which speaks a good bit in itself. ORU had 11 hits in the box score, but at least 6 of those were what I would call a miss hit. High bouncing choppers that take forever to get to the infielder or bluppers that get just over the infield. It had to be frustrating for our infielders and pitchers. Then at least two balls that should have been caught in the outfield, one to right and one to left, that we got to the ball but miss played it. It was just a weird game that we were able to do what we needed to pull out the win. I'll take it!

 

Evans has been a pretty good defensive OF over the past two years. In two games in Omaa, he didn't get to balls that he has caught in other opportunities, moving toward or into foul territory. That includes a couple of catches sliding into the RF berm wall. I was disappointed he didn't catch either of he balls, but each time, I felt good that he was the one making the play.

 

During the seasons he was a reliever, Wilkerson generally played 1B and would warm up between batters with a catcher crouching near the wall, next to the dugout.

 

Back when Evans was a starter this year we were playing just about all of our games at home. We had 3 SEC road series that he started in but after that he sat. Makes me wonder if he needed more time getting use to the Chuck and that tight corner to feel comfortable enough to go diving for balls in the corner. That said I don't think Shelnut would have gotten to either of those balls nor would Schiekofer made either of those catches.

 

Question, why were we the visiting team? We were the higher seeded team, which got us the home team status in the first game, and WF was designated as the home team in the exact same situation?
....NM, WF was the visiting team also....

 

It's a formula basically built around the number of times that a team has been home and away. HAA will host HA (for example). HA vs. AH will be a coin toss unless they have previously played. In 2017, before the championship series, FLORIDA was the higher seed, but since both teams had 1 loss, they went to a coin flip; if LSU had won game 2, there would have been a coin flip immediately following the game to determine the game 3 home team.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

WES—

Sounds to me like you have revealed the NCAA’s master plan formula on everything it does—AH-HA!

 

From reading posters on this forum I thought that the NCAA and the SEC would only do things that hurt the Gators.